What one writes about after taking the Landmark Forum

I awoke today with a sense of sadness. A feeling like I was missing something in life...something deeper than what it is I now have. And don't get me wrong, I have a pretty great life. But it is a sense of loss that I can't seem to shake. The unremembered dream I had must have something to do with it. I was walking through the streets of San Francisco and wished I had the sense of camaraderie that the gay community seems to share (and no, I'm still not gay). There was an invisible wavy barrier (like in Star Trek when someone walks into a force field) between me and all the buildings as I walked down the Haight Ashbury and I knew that if I were gay...if I belonged, that barrier wouldn't be there. And yes I do realize that the same barrier exists for the gay community looking out from those buildings at the rest of the world...but this is my rant and this isn't about being straight or gay but about belonging. A sense of being in the tribe. I've looked for it my whole life and even when I'm in the middle of a community I still feel like I'm on its edge. I used to blame the different groups I was in for being too exclusive or too clique-ish. Whether it was an anti-nuclear protest group in college, or a sweat lodge group I attended years ago, or a group of actors working together on stage, or a professional group of RN's I work with in every ER I've been in, I just never felt like I belonged. I never felt comfortable in my own skin no matter what the situation was. Now I get it...I just don't feel that comfortable in my own skin no matter what the situation is! Um...DUH! It's not the group James belongs to but James! I'm not just now coming to this understanding, and there is no 2-by-4 smack-to-the-head moment for me, but there is a light shining in a dark cob webby place in my psyche that has been under-examined and hiding out. It wants to stay dark and undiscovered and unruffled so that I can continue to whine about how no one loves me and no one understands me and no one feels my pain. It's really destructive to me yet feels so right, so normal and it allows me to actually believe in what "I know is real" instead of what is real. What IS real is that the only constant in all of my groups/activities/involvements my whole life is ME and my cob-webby fears and self abusive voice that knows I'm truly unlovable so of course no group would fully accept me (hell, I don't even fully accept me!). So once again I ask the question, "where is that invisible thread I'm looking for?" "Where is that communal fire or drum circle or tribal dance inside that lets me know I belong to something bigger than me and my immediate family?" And through writing in this public journal of insecurity and self exploration I have come out with the answer I already knew of course...that I am that invisible thread. I am that communal fire and tribal dance that must love himself so that I'm able to accept the love of the community that already does love me. What a block-head! I'm kind of altering the quote (without changing the meaning of the quote) "you can't really love another until you learn to love yourself" to "you can't really know the love of another until you learn to love yourself". If I don't really love me then the love I feel from others gets put through my filter of "oh but if they knew the real me they wouldn't love me, or I better act a certain way or they won't love me anymore. Conditional. Fearful. Lonely. Time to remember to love myself and let in the love I feel everyday from so many awesome people in my life from family, to my love Sheryl, to people I work with like Jim Cole and Weyshawn, to people who actually read this blather like Margaret!